“Compassionate”, “big-hearted”, “inspirational” are just some of the words used by colleagues to describe Dave Hill following his sudden death in June aged 61.
Hill had been executive director for children at Surrey County Council since April 2018, after spending eight years leading children’s services at Essex Council. Prior to that, he’d been director of children’s services (DCS) in Croydon and Merton councils.
As Essex DCS, he oversaw the transformation of the department, taking looked-after children services from an “inadequate” Ofsted rating to an overall “good” by 2014.
His success in Essex was built on his passion for relationship-based social work practice. Instrumental in that was the opening of the Essex Social Care Academy in 2012, which the council has credited for cutting agency staff use and social worker caseloads. Hill, who set up a similar academy in Croydon, said the approach helped disseminate shared values about ways of working with families and boost recruitment and retention of staff.
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